Interning with Paramount Pictures

While participating in the Colleges’ L.A. Behind the Scenes Trip over winter break, Ryan Lohuis ’14 never imagined he would later land an internship with Paramount Pictures, one of the many places visited on the trip.

A media and society major and an avid film and television fan, Lohuis was interested in learning more about how major Hollywood studios are run and operated. Inspired by the L.A. trip, he applied for the internship with Paramount and underwent a rigorous application and interview process. He was then given a job working for the production team from June through early August.

Among the more memorable events during the internship was preparing and working for the premier of “World War Z,” Paramount’s newly released action-adventure blockbuster. Lohuis had to take care of many logistics, including creation of gate passes to allow trucks and individuals into the studios. Of course, he also engaged in a number of day-to-day activities and worked events.

“My daily routine was acting as a liaison between television shows, commercials, limited feature films, and the studio itself,” he explains. “The production team’s job is to fill the 28 sound stages, the various streets that function as realistic cities (such as New York and Chicago), and the office buildings with production companies.”

He also went on “scouts,” which is when a production team goes around the studio and chooses where they want to shoot a scene, inventoried old equipment and created a map or guide of how camera footage from television shows is transported around the lot, and also got to see the filming of both live audience and non-audience shows.

Lohuis’ future goals and career interests include directing, producing and creating television and film.

“I hoped to learn how a studio runs and I’ve accomplished that; I could not have learned it from any other department on the lot, as there are 100 interns and a lot of departments,” he says. “I am blessed to have learned how a giant conglomerate such as this functions in comparison to low budget productions.”

Lohuis said his studies at HWS prepared him for the demanding internship. “From my classroom experience, I was prepared in the sense that I got the outline of the industry and how companies work financially. I learned, notably, how studios function as a corporation and are the backbone of big budget films,” he says. “Actually experiencing it firsthand and outside a classroom setting made everything I had learned make that much more sense to me.”

On campus, Lohuis is involved in intramural sports as a player and a referee, and plays club hockey. He has filmed a couple of documentaries, and through the “Intro to Documentary” class, he and his fellow classmates won “Best Documentary” at the Finger Lakes Film Festival.